Once
by oopspro
Summary: A continuation of 'A New Beginning', this story gives some history of how he became Gadget, and he wonders what he is now: Man or Machine.


(Author's notes: This is a continuation of the story 'A New Beginning', which builds upon the portrayal of Inspector Gadget that I created in it. It is much darker than the regular Gadget and gives an overview of what he was prior to becoming Gadget. I have a few more ideas to continue with this portrayal in other short stories.)

Once...

Once I was a man. Now I'm not sure what I am.

Once I was a French Police Inspector. I was proud of the work that I did. I put the scum of the earth in their place.

As full of ambition and passion as I was, it only took a few years to move from a patrolman to an Inspector. As an Inspector I used my passion to push me through the controversial and delicate cases. I turned down nothing and treated each case with care and consideration. Within two years I was known as an adept detective and a gang buster throughout Paris. Only one more year, and rumors found their way to me of how the criminals of Paris spoke my name in hushed tones lest I over hear.

My superiors found joy in this but my joy has always been found in my younger brother Peire, with whom I spent all of my limited free time. We would often walk about the small tract of land he had bought out in the countryside. Sometimes we would even take Penelope, my niece with us.

Peire had gone to college, married, and had a child. These were all things that I could never had envisioned for myself, but I was very happy to share in it with him. Many times, while watching Penny chase butterflies in the meadows surrounding his cottage, Peire would tease me about it.

"Are women too much a mystery for Paris' most famous Inspector?" He would chide me, laughing.

On my last visit after being offered a position with a joint European counter terrorist task force which had only surprised me, we discussed the offer at a great deal. It was mostly i who discussed it while Peire sat quietly listening. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to spend enough time with him and that the virtual promotion would mean giving up the streets, where I thrived as an Inspector. Peire stayed quiet for a long time about what he thought.

We had taken Penny into the village for a treat and the two year old had fallen asleep in my lap on the ride back, when Peire suddenly pulled the car over to the side of the road. For a long moment he sat rail-straight in his seat before looking back at his daughter and then me.

"Brother," the passion in his voice almost choking him up, "You know how worried I get about you being out on the streets. Anything could happen to you, and don't you think that you're niece should get to know her uncle rather than hear from strangers what a great man he was?"

That settled it for me, and within a month I had been completely moved into a small basement office at the offices of the French branch of Interpol along with others of the joint task force, but, after four months of chasing leads, with no results, and boring desk work, I found myself longing for the excitement of the streets. In my new spare time I began to lend myself out to former colleagues at the Paris police, looking over case files and using my gang buster expertise to give insight into everything from street workers to gun running.

At my desk one night, while alternating from cases for the Paris police and leads gathered by the joint task force, something caught my eye, and I began rifling through all the old case files and intelligence that we had gathered. Something was off. There were too many similarities revealing themselves.

I became obsessed and, my superiors began to whisper about how I was overworked, but in a month I had gathered all of the evidence that I needed. While street crime was still as diverse as it had ever been, the higher level and organized crime could all be traced back, in one way or another, to a single source. Some unknown organization was pulling the strings on all of France's organized crime and, like an octopus; it was stretching out over the whole of Europe.

I put my findings together and took them to the task force's chief inspector but I was summarily dismissed. As I saw it there was only one thing I could do. I hit the streets.

I hopped from lowlife center I could find to the next, checking every nook and cranny, as passion driven as I had ever been, but, for what little progress I seemed to be making, I had begun to gain more attention on myself. It began with a black sedan that would follow my every move. Everywhere I went it was always present, but I was not so easily deterred, or perhaps it was simply a fool hearty confidence in my abilities, and I continued my questioning in the lower quarter. Each night I would come home tired, smelling of cheap wine and beer, with little to show for my efforts, and each day my watcher would become bolder.

Finally, after yet another night of fruitlessly roaming, the city, I awoke to a presence in the room with me. A man sat in the shadows of my bedroom. He was finely dressed but his face was deep in the shadows and could not be seen. His hands glimmered like jewels in the moonlight seeping in through the window and I felt confident that I would easily be able to recognize a man who wore that much jewelry on his hands.

The man calmly crossed his legs and began to talk to me in conversational tones, his French tinged with an African accent, as if he were simply a late but expected guest. He explained that he worked for an organization which was everything that I had expected it to be. It puppeteered not just terrorist activity but everything from petty crime to intercontinental wars both through funding and arming, as well as, active participation. He told me that they reached much farther than I had ever expected and that their agents were as diverse and unexpected as the imagination could stretch. They could be anything from the pimp on the street corner or the clerk at the grocer to your cousin's new girlfriend, but they preferred to work in the shadows, and I was getting far too close to them for comfort. Much closer than anyone before me. Some national investigation agencies hadn't even determined their existence yet. All I had been able to find out was a name, "Claw". I knew it was an acronym but not what it stood for, but the man said that was more than they wanted any person outside of their organization to know, but, sounding pleased, he went ahead and filled me in. Claw stood for Criminal Logistics, Activism, and Warfare.

He said that he was known, even among his peers, only by his code name, "Doctor", and he called himself a high level recruiter and fixer. It was his function within the group to search out influence and fix problems. He told me that as of that moment I was either one or the other. It was up to me which one I chose to be. If I agreed to join I would be given power and money and anything else I might desire, but if I were to continue on with my investigations I would become a problem that he would need to fix. As I began my protestations he stood and went to leave, but before he went out the door he turned back to me and his conversational tone was dropped. Coldly he told me that I held much promise and I should think about the offer. Then he left.

For the next few days I thought it over but in my way drew a line in the sand. What Claw did was wrong and no matter what the cost they had to be ferreted out and brought to justice for the sake of people like my brother who were caught in the middle of a war that they knew nothing about.

I continued my investigation and two days later, while getting into my car after yet another fruitless night of questioning, the ignition switch of my car set off a large cache of explosives hidden in the back seat of my car. Like a rag doll of meat and skin my body was tossed through the windshield riding a ball of flame. Little of my body was left functioning, and as my heart and lungs began to fail. A well dressed figure with designer shoes walked up to my body and spoke to me in a cold voice with an African accent.

"Consider yourself fixed Inspector."

Then I died.

There was no bright light, warm feeling of peace, or dead relatives to meet me on the other side. Just a bittersweet memory of watching my niece, Penny, as she chased a butterfly in the meadow and knowing that I would have to leave and return to my lonely life in Paris.

Then I was alive.

At first there were just sounds.

"Are we on-line?"

"93% capacity, sir."

"98% and holding."

"Good, engage ocular implants."

"Implants booting up."

It was like seeing for the first time. Light flooded my eyes and nothing was distinguishable. Everything was colors and rough shapes.

"Respiration has increased and heart rate is spiking!"

"Whoa, settle down there big fella."

"He's heading for melt down again!"

In the midst of my panic and confusion my mind hit upon an odd thought that stopped me in my tracks. These voices were all speaking English and apart from the odd phrase I had never learned the language. So the question became: How was I able to understand a language I didn't know?

"He's coming back. Respiration and heart rate returning to normal."

"Has anyone checked brain activity? It's off the charts! I think he's starting to come around."

My eyes began to adjust to the light and in front of me a pleasant, round, smiling face materialized. I tried to speak but quickly realized that I couldn't.

"You can't speak yet, but don't worry: you'll be fully operational in a few moments." The man with the round smiling face said, "Let me be the first to welcome you back to the land of the living Inspector Gadget."

Once I was a man.

[Final thoughts: I hope that you like this piece. I know that it is rather dark but I think that this is more of a realistic look at what Inspector Gadget would be. Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed it.]


End file.
